Cisco is acquiring cybersecurity software company Splunk for $157 per share in a cash deal worth about $28 billion, the company said Thursday, in its largest acquisition ever.
Splunk shares rose 21% in Thursday morning trading, while Cisco shares slipped 3.3%.
“From threat detection and response to threat prediction and prevention, we will help make organizations of all sizes more secure and resilient,” Cisco chair and CEO Chuck Robbins said in a statement. The deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter of 2024, continues a months-long buying spree to build out Cisco’s cybersecurity offerings.
Cisco expects the deal to be cash flow positive and gross margin accretive in the first year following the closing of the acquisition; it will be accretive to Cisco’s non-GAAP earnings per share by the second year.
Robbins expected organizational synergies to become clear and impactful within 12 to 18 months, he said Thursday in an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street. The company will finance the deal with a combination of cash and debt, he said.
“Together, we will become one of the largest software companies globally,” Robbins said in a conference call with analysts.
Splunk logo displayed on a phone screen and a laptop keyboard are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on October 30, 2021. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Analysts had mixed responses to the deal, raising concerns about potential product overlap, regulatory scrutiny and the price Cisco paid for a company that had, from the perspective of one analyst, presented an “underwhelming” pivot to cloud.
In recent years, Splunk turned away from an on-premise “customer-managed” approach to focus on a cloud-oriented offering.
Robbins and Splunk CEO Gary Steele pushed back on those concerns. “We still have many large customers who are very dependent upon the capabilities that we allow for in a customer managed environment,” Steele told analysts.
Robbins added that the companies did not anticipate needing to obtain regulatory approval for Splunk’s China business.
Splunk is a cybersecurity company that helps enterprises monitor and analyze their data to minimize the risk of hacks and resolve technical issues faster. Cisco makes and sells telecommunications and networking equipment, as well as a complementary suite of software.
Splunk CEO Steele had been with the company for a little more than a year. Prior to Splunk, Steele was CEO at Proofpoint, a cybersecurity firm. Proofpoint was acquired by Thoma Bravo in a $12.3 billion deal in 2021.
Steele will join Cisco’s executive leadership team after the deal close, Cisco said.
If Cisco backs out of the deal or is forced to do so because of regulatory intervention, it will pay Splunk a termination fee of $1.48 billion, according to a regulatory filing. If Splunk backs out of the deal for any reason, it will pay a $1 billion breakup fee to Cisco.
In 2023 alone, Cisco has acquired four companies: Armorblox, a threat detection platform, Oort, which does identity management, and Valtix and Lightspin, both cloud security companies. Cisco’s largest acquisition prior to the Splunk deal was the purchase of Scientific Atlanta for nearly $7 billion.
Tidal Partners, Simpson Thacher, and Cravath, Swaine & Moore advised Cisco. Qatalyst Partners, Morgan Stanley, and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom advised Splunk.
Paxton sued Google in 2022 for allegedly unlawfully tracking and collecting the private data of users.
The attorney general said the settlement, which covers allegations in two separate lawsuits against the search engine and app giant, dwarfed all past settlements by other states with Google for similar data privacy violations.
Google’s settlement comes nearly 10 months after Paxton obtained a $1.4 billion settlement for Texas from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to resolve claims of unauthorized use of biometric data by users of those popular social media platforms.
“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said in a statement on Friday.
“For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won,” said Paxton.
“This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”
Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said the company did not admit any wrongdoing or liability in the settlement, which involves allegations related to the Chrome browser’s incognito setting, disclosures related to location history on the Google Maps app, and biometric claims related to Google Photo.
Castaneda said Google does not have to make any changes to products in connection with the settlement and that all of the policy changes that the company made in connection with the allegations were previously announced or implemented.
“This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” Castaneda said.
“We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services.”
Virtual care company Omada Health filed for an IPO on Friday, the latest digital health company that’s signaled its intent to hit the public markets despite a turbulent economy.
Founded in 2012, Omada offers virtual care programs to support patients with chronic conditions like prediabetes, diabetes and hypertension. The company describes its approach as a “between-visit care model” that is complementary to the broader health-care ecosystem, according to its prospectus.
Revenue increased 57% in the first quarter to $55 million, up from $35.1 million during the same period last year, the filing said. The San Francisco-based company generated $169.8 million in revenue during 2024, up 38% from $122.8 million the previous year.
Omada’s net loss narrowed to $9.4 million during its first quarter from $19 million during the same period last year. It reported a net loss of $47.1 million in 2024, compared to a $67.5 million net loss during 2023.
The IPO market has been largely dormant across the tech sector for the past three years, and within digital health, it’s been almost completely dead. After President Donald Trump announced a sweeping tariff policy that plunged U.S. markets into turmoil last month, taking a company public is an even riskier endeavor. Online lender Klarna delayed its long-anticipated IPO, as did ticket marketplace StubHub.
But Omada Health isn’t the first digital health company to file for its public market debut this year. Virtual physical therapy startup Hinge Health filed its prospectus in March, and provided an update with its first-quarter earnings on Monday, a signal to investors that it’s looking to forge ahead.
Omada contracts with employers, and the company said it works with more than 2,000 customers and supports 679,000 members as of March 31. More than 156 million Americans suffer from at least one chronic condition, so there is a significant market opportunity, according to the company’s filing.
In 2022, Omada announced a $192 million funding round that pushed its valuation above $1 billion. U.S. Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Fidelity’s FMR LLC are the largest outside shareholders in the company, each owning between 9% and 10% of the stock.
“To our prospective shareholders, thank you for learning more about Omada. I invite you join our journey,” Omada co-founder and CEO Sean Duffy said in the filing. “In front of us is a unique chance to build a promising and successful business while truly changing lives.”
Liz Reid, vice president, search, Google speaks during an event in New Delhi on December 19, 2022.
Sajjad Hussain | AFP | Getty Images
Testimony in Google‘s antitrust search remedies trial that wrapped hearings Friday shows how the company is calculating possible changes proposed by the Department of Justice.
Google head of search Liz Reid testified in court Tuesday that the company would need to divert between 1,000 and 2,000 employees, roughly 20% of Google’s search organization, to carry out some of the proposed remedies, a source with knowledge of the proceedings confirmed.
The testimony comes during the final days of the remedies trial, which will determine what penalties should be taken against Google after a judge last year ruled the company has held an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search.
The DOJ, which filed the original antitrust suit and proposed remedies, asked the judge to force Google to share its data used for generating search results, such as click data. It also asked for the company to remove the use of “compelled syndication,” which refers to the practice of making certain deals with companies to ensure its search engine remains the default choice in browsers and smartphones.
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The DOJ also proposed the company divest its Chrome browser but that was not included in Reid’s initial calculation, the source confirmed.
Reid on Tuesday said Google’s proprietary “Knowledge Graph” database, which it uses to surface search results, contains more than 500 billion facts, according to the source, and that Google has invested more than $20 billion in engineering costs and content acquisition over more than a decade.
“People ask Google questions they wouldn’t ask anyone else,” she said, according to the source.
Reid echoed Google’s argument that sharing its data would create privacy risks, the source confirmed.
Closing arguments for the search remedies trial will take place May 29th and 30th, followed by the judge’s decision expected in August.
The company faces a separate remedies trial for its advertising tech business, which is scheduled to begin Sept. 22.